Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Monday, March 17, 2008
Saints Days
It's a beautiful clear St. Patrick's Day here in Virginia and I'm lucky enough to be able to spend it in the garden. And I don't know about you, but I can use all the help I can get in the garden. I recently learned that St. Fiacre is the patron saint of gardeners. But apparently not the only one. Today is also the feast day of St. Gertrude of Nivelles, another saintly garden helper. She's said to be good at keeping mice away, but maybe that has more to do with her association with cats?
Getting back to St. Patrick, is he really the patron saint of organic gardening, as claimed by this website? I find this a little hard to believe, but I like to think he'd be more pleased if somebody would build a compost pile in his honor rather than spend the day drinking green beer.
Some folks believe you should plant your potatoes and peas on St. Patrick's Day, but I'm not growing peas this year and I'm not ready to plant potatoes, so I'll be outside weeding and digging up some more ground in the vegetable garden.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Labels: seasons
5 Comments:
Years ago a nursery in IL sold little wall plaques with St Fiacre on them and one hangs on my veranda ... also heard about St Gertrude - patron of both mice and cats? How does that work?
Thanks for the link - its' a cute site. We also have a St Isidor the farmer hanging in the kitchen...rather than bury St Joseph upside down during our last move, we hung St Is to ensure we'd get a house with a garden.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Annie: I don't quite grasp all the subtleties of patron saints, but apparently they're somewhat flexible? You'd think the pictures of St. Gertrude would show her with mice running away from her.
St Gertrude must have been around last weekend - one Diva can't be near cats, so of course one of the wandering neighborhood felines wouldn't leave her alone.
Entangled, I went back to google and on a couple of sites read that Gertrude's prayers saved the convent's grain supply from mice - if they didn't run at least they left!
Annie
Annie: I like cats, but they do seem to have a talent for hanging around where they're not wanted. Under my bird feeders, for example.
Now I understand the St. Gertrude/mice connection. Wonder if she could help with voles and hostas?
Reading these comments has been great fun. I don't think I've had this good a chuckle for ages.
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